Sky Eye ?

wsoppitt · Jan 7, 2013

wiring up new installation in domestic property and clients has ask for the following ( in their words ) :

We want sky run to living room and bed 2 ( ok straightforward , dual coax from each room to loft ).

We want sky eye going off bed 2 feed to kitchen so can watch sky in kitchen also .

This i am confused about , would it be a single coax run from bed 2 to kitchen which would be connected into out port of sky box .how would he be able to change the channel in kitchen ?

Any advice as to best way to do this .

regards wayne

ProDave · Jan 7, 2013

Don't run the two sky feeds to the loft. Sky installers won't normally go into a loft unless it's boarded and light, so that's just making life awkward.

Instead run the two sky feeds (two feeds to each sky box) to where the dish is going to go on a south or south east facing wall. Leave enough cable to fit the dish, 2 or 3 metres is plenty, and waterproof the ends.

Use WF100 or similar decent satellite cable. Terminate in the rooms with a fully screened dual F connector socket plate.

The "sky eye" thing is just one more coax (same WF100) from the bedroom sky location to the kitchen. Use normal tv aerial sockets at both ends of that cable. This connects to the sky box RF out 2, and in the kitchen will connect to the tv's aerial socket.

If the kitchen tv will also be used for terrestrial (freeview) tv, then you need to install a tv aerial and connect that to the BEDROOM sky box where it will go to the sky box RF IN socket. the RF out 2 will then provide an aerial feed down to the kitchen tv as well.

you might as well for completeness connect an aerial feed to the living room tv as well, even if it's not being used straight away, they might thank you in the future for thinking ahead.

Don't forget for Sky multiroom, it's a requirement for each box to be connected to the telephone line, so make sure there's a telephone socket next to each box.

you can get some nice outlet plates with telephone, tv aerial, return and two F connectors all in one 2G plate.

As "on demand" is now a feature of sky, I would also run a cat5 network cable to at least the main sky box so they can connect to the router to get sky on demand stuff.

And talk to your customer, if the distance is not too great (<10M) I would run an hdmi cable from the bedroom box to the kitchen to get a better picture quality. you can get cheap hdmi splitters to run 2 tv's from the one hdmi output on the sky box.

kme · Jan 8, 2013

The "sky eye" is a little bloboid that sits in the coax line in the kitchen, gets its power from the sky box, and allows you to control the sky box in the bedroom, with a sky remote, from the kitchen.

wsoppitt · Jan 8, 2013

Thanks prodave , couldnt ask for a better reply , might even sound like i know what im talking about when i discuss with client .

If i knew how to , :Salute i would give this a big thumbs up and a smiley face .

ah , found out how to do the smiley face .